Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

This Pride Month, our rights are under fire

Happy Pride Month
daniele scandola/Getty Images

Johnson is a United Methodist pastor, the author of "Holding Up Your Corner: Talking About Race in Your Community" and program director for the Bridge Alliance, which houses The Fulcrum.

As June ushers in Pride Month, cities worldwide erupt in a rainbow of celebrations, rallies and moments of reflection. While there's a palpable mix of joy and determination as communities come together, for many within and allied to the LGBTQ+ community, this year's observance is bittersweet. Even as we commemorate the hard-fought victories of the past, the future of those very rights feels precarious. Legal uncertainty casts a long shadow over the parades and parties.


At the heart of this unease lies the fragile state of marriage equality. It was only a decade ago that the Supreme Court's landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling struck down bans on same-sex marriage, cementing a fundamental right. But in the aftermath of the court's 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the threat to Obergefell is impossible to ignore. Justice Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion practically dared someone to challenge the ruling, and conservative groups are already mobilizing to do just that. The danger is no longer theoretical — it's a genuine possibility that could upend the lives of millions.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

This threat isn't merely hypothetical. Legislation like the Respect for Marriage Act, which would enshrine federal protections for same-sex marriage, remains stalled. Without it, the rights of millions of LGBTQ+ Americans hang precariously in the balance, vulnerable to a court that has already demonstrated its willingness to dismantle established precedents. Each day without action leaves families in legal limbo, their futures hanging by a thread.

However, the struggle for LGBTQ+ equality extends far beyond the courtroom. The world of religion remains a complex, often fraught arena. The recent schism within the United Methodist Church over LGBTQ+ inclusion is a stark reminder that houses of worship can be both sources of comfort and sites of pain for queer individuals. As some Methodists welcome all into their congregations, others have splintered off, digging in their heels. Such practices aren't unique to Methodism — from synagogues to mosques, religious communities grapple with reconciling doctrine and compassion, with wildly varying results.

From the Catholic Church's internal struggle over blessing same-sex unions to Orthodox Judaism's profoundly entrenched opposition to queer rights, religious communities wrestle with their own identities and values. For LGBTQ+ people of faith, these debates cut to the quick. They're a constant reminder that even in a society that has made enormous strides toward acceptance, some still seek to deny their existence. The pain of that rejection runs deep, a spiritual dislocation that can shake one's sense of self.

Yet, even in the face of this uncertainty and division, Pride endures. It endures because it's more than just a celebration — it's a declaration — declaration that LGBTQ+ lives are valid, that their love is equal, and that their identities will not be erased or marginalized. It's a defiant affirmation of selfhood in the face of those who would seek to deny it. With every step and every chant, we proclaim that our existence is not a sin but a strength.

This Pride Month, the faithful will march, dance and remember alongside one another. We'll honor the pioneers who fought and bled for the rights we enjoy today. We'll stand in solidarity with those still facing discrimination and danger, both at home and abroad. And we'll look to the future, undaunted by the challenges ahead. Drawing on the deep wellspring of resilience that has always defined our community, we'll find the determination to thrive in the face of adversity.

Pride commemorates the past and promises the future. It's a testament to the indomitable spirit of a community that has always known its existence as an act of resistance. In the face of those who would seek to roll back our hard-won gains, we'll be the stone in the shoe, the voices that refuse to be silenced.

This June, you are encouraged to raise colorful flags, beat your drum loudly, proudly take it to the streets, and proclaim Pride to the world. In doing so, we're not just celebrating who we are — we're shaping who we all yet may be. And that's a victory no court ruling or religious doctrine can ever take away. In the end, true power doesn't lie in the judgments of courts or the teachings of churches but in the unquenchable spirit of love and acceptance. That's the true meaning of Pride, and it's what will carry us forward, no matter what the future may hold.

Read More

People marching

Black Lives Matter protesters march in New York.

Ira L. Black - Corbis/Getty Images

Progress is won by pursuing justice, not waiting patiently in line

Agbo is the CEO of the Kataly Foundation and the managing director of the foundation’s Restorative Economies Fund.

It’s another election year. Another year when the stakes are sky high and the promise of our democracy is in peril. Another year when people — primarily people of color — are asked to put aside differences and come together to save our country.

What is the responsibility of philanthropy in yet another moment of political uncertainty?

Keep ReadingShow less
Fannie Lou Hamer

Fannie Lou Hamer testifies at the Democratic National Convention in 1964.

Bettmann/Getty Images

60 years later, it's time to restart the Freedom Summer

Johnson is a United Methodist pastor, the author of "Holding Up Your Corner: Talking About Race in Your Community" and program director for the Bridge Alliance, which houses The Fulcrum.

Sixty years have passed since Freedom Summer, that pivotal season of 1964 when hundreds of young activists descended upon an unforgiving landscape, driven by a fierce determination to shatter the chains of racial oppression. As our nation teeters on the precipice of another transformative moment, the echoes of that fateful summer reverberate across the years, reminding us that freedom remains an unfinished work.

At the heart of this struggle stood Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper's daughter whose voice thundered like a prophet's in the wilderness, signaling injustice. Her story is one of unyielding defiance, of a spirit that the brutal lash of bigotry could not break. When Hamer testified before the Democratic National Convention in 1964, her words, laced with the pain of beatings and the fire of righteous indignation, laid bare the festering wound of racial terror that had long plagued our nation. Her resilience in the face of such adversity is a testament to the power of the human spirit.

Keep ReadingShow less
Male and female gender symbols
Hreni/Getty Images

The Montana Legislature tried, and failed, to define sex

Nelson is a retired attorney and served as an associate justice of the Montana Supreme Court from 1993 through 2012.

In 2023, the Montana State Legislature passed a bill, signed into law by the governor, that defined sex and sexuality as being either, and only, male or female. It defined “sex” in the following manner: “In human beings, there are exactly two sexes, male and female with two corresponding gametes.” The law listed some 41 sections of the Montana Code that need to be revised based on this definition.

Keep ReadingShow less
two Black people wrapped in an American flag
Raul Ortin/Getty Images

July Fourth: A bittersweet reminder of a dream deferred

Juste is a researcher at the Movement Advancement Project and author of the reportFreedom Under Fire: The Far Right's Battle to Control America.”

“Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.”
— Langston Hughes, I Too

On the Fourth of July we celebrated many things: our nation’s independence, our democracy and the opportunity to gather with loved ones who, ideally, embrace us for who we are. Yet, this same nation does not always make room for us to live freely for who we are, who we love, what we look like and how we pray. And it is this dissonance that renders the Fourth of July’s celebration a bittersweet reminder of a dream deferred for many of us.

Keep ReadingShow less
Campus building with university flag

University of Oklahoma

Oklahoma women robbed of critical resources, entry point into politics

Stacey is a political science professor and program coordinator for political science at Rose State College. Stacey is a member of Scholars Strategy Network.

The University of Oklahoma’s recent decision to shutter a longstanding program intended to encourage, empower and educate female Oklahoma college students to pursue civic and political service careers has deeply unsettled me.

I am upset by the abrupt end to this invaluable program, both as a 2007 alumna of the National Education for Women’s Leadership program and a political science professor who has written recommendation letters and successfully sent at least two students to the program in my last decade of teaching.

The Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center has coordinated and hosted the NEW Leadership program since its inception in 2002, making me one of the elder graduates of a program that is critical to fostering Oklahoma’s future female political leaders.

Keep ReadingShow less